After some days and more than a few hours of elbow grease, my 4 tubes are de-rusted, sanded, polished and waxed. I didn't have a drill or lathe setup to let the motor do the spinning and sandpaper block do the polishing, so what you are seeing is the result of:
1. leaving each tube in evaporust solution for a day (in hindsight, one gallon wasn't sufficient as the solution was getting weak by the third one, and not as efficient at removing rust, which meant more elbow grease - you can tell that the lower tubes didn't come out as polished as the top ones, as they were done last)
2. setting up each tube in a vise and going at it with 60, 80, 120, 220, 400 grit paper (using a technique similar to buffing a shoe with a rag, sliding the length of sandpaper up and down and moving down the tube, going around the sides, flipping each tube and doing the bottom portion the same way - tedious, great forearm exercice, and reasonably good results)
3. applying car wax at the end, when done with the 400 grit wet-dry paper.
Before picture:
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After pictures:
[ATTACH]5624[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]5625[/ATTACH]
The ones on the left are the way (top) tubes, which came out better than the ones on the right (bottom tubes), in part because they weren't as badly rusted at the start. Not as good looking at what some of you have accomplished with a lathe setup, but I'm still quite pleased with how this turned out, the rust is gone and with proper attention (waxing etc.) it should never get to the sad state it was in when I purchased it (sitting outside in the rain

)
Whew, hope I don't have to do
THAT again soon (at least, not without motorized assistance!

)
That done, I can start working on cleaning up and painting the aluminum pieces that hold the tubes at each end (have already painted the "legs"). Then the main carriage can be put together and I'll feel like I'm getting somewhere.
I am waiting on some information on rebuilt parts for the headstock, and once I've acquired them, can finish putting the headstock back together.
Well, at least the dirtiest part of the job is behind me (I hope

)
Cheers, all.